the conclusion that there is nothing absolute in justice or in law. To what an appalling condition society has arrived, when it reaches the positive conclusion that there is no truth, no religion, no justice, no virtue in the world; that the only object of human exertion is unrestrained physical enjoyment; the only standard of a man's position, wealth; that, since there is no possibility of truth, whose eternal principles might serve for an uncontrovertible and common guide, we should resort to deception and the arts of persuasion, that we may dupe others for our purposes; that there is no sin in undermining the social contract; no crime in blasphemy, or rather there is no blasphemy at all, since there are no gods; that "man is the measure of all things," as Protagoras teaches, and that "he is the criterion of existence;" that "thought is only the relation of the thinking subject to the object thought of, and that the thinking subject, the soul, is nothing more than the sum of the different moments of thinking." It is no wonder that that Sophist who was the author of such doctrines should be condemned to death to satisfy the clamours

They end in blank atheism.

of a populace who had not advanced sufficiently into the depths of this secondary, this higher philosophy, and that it was only by flight that he could save himself from the punishment awaiting the opening sentiment of his book: "Of the gods I cannot tell whether they are or not, for much hinders us from knowing this-both the obscurity of the subject and the shortness of life." It is no wonder that the social demoralization spread apace, when men like Gorgias, the disciple of Empedocles, were to be found, who laughed at virtue, made an open derision of morality, and proved, by metaphysical demonstration, that nothing at all exists.

From these statements respecting the crisis at which ancient philosophy had arrived, we might be disposed to believe that the result was unmitigated evil, for it scarcely deserves mention that the quibbles and disputes of the Sophists occasioned an extraordinary improvement of the Greek language, introducing precision into its terms, and a wonderful dialectical skill into its use. For us there may be extracted from these melancholy conclusions at least one instructive lesson-that it is not during the process of

Middle Ages.

decomposition of philosophies, and especially of religions, that social changes occur, for such breakings-up Political commonly go on in an isolated, and therefore dangers of innocuous way; but if by chance the fragments the higher analysis. and decomposed portions are brought together, and attempts are made by fusion to incorporate them anew, or to extract from them, by a secondary analysis, what truth they contain, a crisis is at once brought on, and— such is the course of events-in the catastrophe that ensues they are commonly all absolutely destroyed. It was doubtless their foresight of such consequences that inspired the Italian statesmen of the Middle Ages with a Illustrations resolute purpose of crushing in the bud every from the encroachment on ecclesiastical authority, and every attempt at individual interpretation of religious doctrines. For it is not to be supposed that men of clear intellect should be insensible to the obvious unreasonableness of many of the dogmas that had been consecrated by authority. But if once permission were accorded to human criticism and human interpretation, what other issue could there be than that doctrine upon doctrine, and sect upon sect should arise; that theological principles should undergo a total decomposition, until two men could scarcely be found whose views coincided; nay, even more than that, that the same man should change his opinion with the changing incidents of the different periods of his life. No matter what might be the plausible guise of the beginning, and the ostensibly cogent arguments for its necessity, once let the decomposition commence, and no human power could arrest it until it had become thorough and complete. Considering the prestige, the authority, and the mass of fact to be dealt with, it might take many centuries for this process to be finished, but that that result would at length be accomplished no enlightened man could doubt. The experience of the ancient European world had shown that in the act of such decompositions there is but little danger, since, for the time being, each sect, and, indeed, each individual, has a guiding rule of life. But as soon as the period of secondary analysis is reached a crisis must inevitably ensue, in all probability involving not only religion, but also the social contract. And though, by the

Danger of

growing formulas of faith.

exercise of force on the part of the interests that are disturbed, aided by that popular sentiment which is abhorrent of anarchy, the crisis might, for a time, be put intellect out- off, it could not be otherwise than that Europe should be left in that deplorable state which must result when the intellect of a people has outgrown its formulas of faith. A fearful condition to contemplate, for such a dislocation must also affect political relations, and necessarily implies revolt against existing law. Nations plunged in the abyss of irreligion must necessarily be nations in anarchy. For a time their tendency to explosion may be kept down by the firm application of the hand of power; but this is simply an antagonism, it is no cure. The social putrefaction proceeds, working its way downward into classes that are lower and lower, until at length it involves the institutions that are relied on for its arrest. Armies, the machinery of compression, once infected, the end is at hand, but no human foresight can predict what the event shall be, especially if Absolute ne- the contemporaneous ruling powers have either cessity of pre- ignorantly or wilfully neglected to prepare munities for society for the inevitable trial it is about to these changes. undergo. It is the most solemn of all the duties of governments, when once they have become aware of such a momentous condition, to prepare the nations for its fearful consequences. For this it may, perhaps, be lawful for them to dissemble in a temporary manner, as it is sometimes proper for a physician to dissemble with his patient; it may be lawful for them even to resort to the use of force, but never should such measures of doubtful correctness be adopted without others directed to a preparation of the mass of society for the trials through which it is about to pass. Such, doubtless, were the profound views of the great Italian statesmen of the Middle Ages; such, doubtless, were the arguments by which they justified to themselves resistance against the beginning of the evil-a course for which Europe has too often and unfairly condemned them.

paring coin

It remains for us now to review the details presented in the foregoing pages for the purpose of determining the successive phases of development through which the Greek

mind passed. It is not with the truth or fallacy of these details that we have to do, but with their order Summary of of occurrence. They are points enabling us the preceding to describe graphically the curve of Grecian intellectual advance.

theories.

The starting point of Greek philosophy is physical and geocentral. The earth is the grand object of the universe, and, as the necessary result, erroneous ideas are entertained as to the relations and dimensions of the sea and air. This philosophy was hardly a century old before it began to cosmogonize, using the principles it considered itself sure of. Long before it was able to get rid of local ideas, such as upward and downward in space, it undertook to explain the origin of the world.

But, as advances were made, it was recognized that creation, in its various parts, displays intention and design, the adaptation of means to secure proposed ends. This suggested a reasoning and voluntary agency, like that of man, in the government of the world; and from a continual reference to human habits and acts, Greek philosophy passed through its stage of anthropoid conceptions.

A little farther progress awakened suspicions that the mind of man can obtain no certain knowledge; and the opinion at last prevailed that we have no trustworthy criterion of truth. In the scepticism thus setting in, the approach to Oriental ideas is each successive instant more and more distinct.

This period of doubt was the immediate forerunner of more correct cosmical opinions. The heliocentric mechanism of the planetary system was introduced, the earth deposed to a subordinate position. The doctrines, both physical and intellectual, founded on geocentric ideas, were necessarily endangered, and, since these had connected themselves with the prevailing religious views, and were represented by important material interests, the public began to practise persecution and the philosophers hypocrisy. Pantheistic notions of the nature of the world became more distinct, and, as their necessary Approach to consequence, the doctrines of Emanation, Trans- Oriental ideas. migration, and Absorption were entertained. From this it is but a step to the suspicion that matter, motion, and

time are phantasms of the imagination-opinions embodied in the atomic theory, which asserts that atoms and space alone exist; and which became more refined when it recognized that atoms are only mathematical points; and still more so when it considered them as mere centres of force. The brink of Buddhism was here approached.

As must necessarily ever be the case where men are coexisting in different psychical stages of advance, some having made a less, some a greater intellectual progress, all these views which we have described successively, were at last contemporaneously entertained. At this point commenced the action of the Sophists, who, by setting the doctrines of one school in opposition to those of another, and representing them all as of equal value, occasioned the destruction of them all, and the philosophy founded on physical speculation came to an end.

Uniformity

Of this phase of Greek intellectual life, if we compare the beginning with the close, we cannot fail to observe how great is the improvement. The thoughts in the manner dealt with at the later period are intrinsically of intellectual of a higher order than those at the outset. From the puerilities and errors with which we have thus been occupied, we learn that there is a definite mode of progress for the mind of man; from the history of later times we shall find that it is ever in the same direction.

progress.